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It's not easy to start a conversation about race. The going recommendation is that one not do it unless they are fully prepared and to not do so at all in "polite company". Similar recommendations exist for politics and religion. However, when your assignment is to begin generating insights through empathy around the topic, you really don't have a choice. So, how do you start?

The fact of the matter is simple: I don't know. In fact, I have been hesitant to try other than to follow the path of a conversation that naturally heads in that direction. That's not good enough, since some of the deepest insights stand to be gained from those who do not naturally take the conversation in the direction of race. That's an assumption on my part, granted.

Often, design thinking is taught with empathy first. But that can prove difficult when your initial problem statement is incredibly broad. In this case, the problem I'm trying to address is this: how might we marry dialogue practice and design thinking to help people better identify potential racial bias and guide them to engage in ways that are more constructive and less harmful to the ongoing national conversation on race?

The problem is incredibly complex. In order to start, I've decided to focus on trying to develop a structured engagement for members of the media and the general public: a guide using design thinking and dialogue methods to help them improve potential interactions.

That's just an idea for a first prototype. Nothing is written in stone.

Race is an incredibly difficult topic to discuss. It can be simultaneously confusing and painful as people hunt for the "right" thing to say, afraid to express what they actually feel. Those who press the issue can often be seen as combative, threatening or tone-deaf. Those who ignore or sidestep it can be seen as unfeeling, naive, enablers of bias and bigotry or called bigots themselves.

Before I work on engaging potential users, however, I need to make a team. I need a collaborator. And I think I found one. I'll have more on that in the next post. That's all for now.

Emi Kolawole earned her B.A. in international relations and theater studies from Wellesley College and studied abroad at both the Panthéon-Sorbonne and the National Theater Institute. She joined the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org in November, 2005 after working as a news researcher for Congressional Quarterly on issues of defense, foreign policy, intelligence and homeland security. Previously, she was a production assistant at PBS's "NOW With Bill Moyers," and worked in the Washington area office of a defense contractor.

In addition to her work as a staff writer and researcher for FactCheck, Emi was the host, writer and video editor for FactCheck.org's weekly video feature "Just the Facts!" She is a level 1 certified Final Cut Pro editor and earned her master's degree in producing for film and video at American University. She also led the fact-checking review effort for "UnSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation."

Emi served as the associate producer for "Washington Week with Gwen Ifill & National Journal." In June 2010 she joined the Washington Post as a producer for PostPolitics. She served as the founding editor for Ideas@Innovations (now "Innovations") and co-host for the Post's daily news program "59 Seconds." In 2011, Emi was named a Young Global Shaper by The World Economic Forum. In 2013 she was listed among The Grio 100, was named a French-American Foundation Young Leader and accepted an invitation to become the Editor-in-residence at the d.school at Stanford University. She has served for the past three years at the d.school, most recently as a senior media designer working on the media experiments collaboration between Knight Foundation and the d.school. She is currently the founder of the media and design consultancy Dexign LLC.